EOF - Linux vs. SCO&mdash;A Foregone Conclusion

When a disruptive technology appears in an existing marketplace,
established players initially take pains, ostrich-like,
to ignore it. Disruptive technologies usually start out as
underpowered or as answers in search of a question, making
it easy to belittle and discount the interloper. However,
once a disruptive technology gains traction and starts making
in-roads to established territory, the powers-that-be wake to
the fact with one of two responses—they either embrace the
disrupter or attempt to crush it.

Linux is a disruptive technology par excellence. Linux began
its life as a hobbyist novelty and a graduate school project. Even
after it made its way into the world over the Internet, it
lagged behind UNIX systems in terms
of capabilities, documentation, support and the ability to
leverage the hardware platforms on which it ran. What made
(and still makes) Linux disruptive is that it works. The
open-source development model, incremental but steady as
the proverbial tortoise, relentlessly advanced the GNU/Linux
operating system and tools to reach and then surpass
the startled proprietary hare. The cooperative spirit of the
Open Source community and the assurances provided by licenses
such as the GPL, LGPL, BSD copyright, NPL/MPL and others help
prevent the fragmentation endemic in proprietary UNIX and
provide the legal basis for the open-source process.

The divide between the powers that embrace Linux and those
that would crush it is wide and deep. Long-standing leaders, such as IBM,
HP and Oracle, had the vision to build new businesses
with and on the Linux platform, despite or because of their
investment in proprietary software, including proprietary UNIX.
Foremost in the opposite camp is of course Microsoft, longtime
foe of UNIX and natural-born enemy of Linux, for both its open
pedigree and the open-source model.

Poor misguided SCO meanders somewhere in the chasm between
the two extremes. The SCO Group, reborn from Linux distributor
Caldera and reminted with the SCO name, now feels
rejected as its base of UNIX licensees migrate to Linux. With
its claims against IBM and attempt to extort monies from Linux
users, SCO is trying to turn Caldera's earlier enthusiastic
embrace into a crushing clinch.

Outpaced technology companies have a long and sorry
tradition of seeking in court what they cannot achieve in
the open marketplace. Legal remedy in lieu of a successful
business strategy always invokes the doctrine of unintended
consequences. SCO's attempts to recover lost business from IBM
AIX royalties will lead IBM and other licensees only to curtail
their already declining proprietary UNIX shipments. Attempting
to extract license fees from enterprise Linux users and embedded
Linux deployers may delay Linux deployment in the short term,
thereby stalling SCO's attempt to generate license revenues.

Self-deception is a typical response to disruptive
technology. SCO's stated Linux Licensing Fees of $699 US for
enterprise use and $32 US for embedded deployment represent a
fantasy worldview that is out of line with the pricing and practices of
both markets. On the enterprise side, this tidy sum is twice
what Microsoft demands for its Windows products in comparable
applications. For embedded systems, the SCO invoice outstrips
typical low-volume royalties by a factor of at least three
and is several orders of magnitude more for high-volume shipments
in consumer electronics applications. For enterprise, the SCO
fee quickly would exhaust available IT budgets; for embedded,
it would overwhelm already slim margins on devices with
bills of materials in the key $50–$200 US range.

None of these legal machinations would enhance the position
of SCO UNIX one bit, nor would they garner Darl McBride any
new Linux-based revenues. In SCO's imagined universe, where
it prevails in the IBM suit or in its Linux licensing
campaign, SCO still loses—does SCO imagine that it
could capture, wound or even kill Linux as a commercial
platform? It ain't gonna happen. A stuffed penguin in McBride's
den would not lay any more golden eggs. Angry enterprise and
embedded Linux users would not turn around and license SCO
UNIX—it offers no technological advantage over Linux, even in
high-end systems, and is completely inappropriate for embedded
applications. Serious developers and users would wish a plague
upon both SCO UNIX and SCO-licensed Linux. Diehards would stick
with Linux and help to create a version scrubbed of any SCO
detritus. Lesser souls might migrate to BSD or even end up in
the clutches of Microsoft. None of these scenarios helps SCO,
whose licensing-based revenue fantasy then reveals itself as
a nightmare, first and foremost for SCO itself.

McBride and company need to realize that in the long term,
SCO's claims would ensure that all SCO code, whether (temporarily)
in Linux or in SCO UNIX, becomes untouchable and unmarketable,
in any form.

So, McBride, Boies, et al. —go ahead, continue gunning for
Linux and open source.
Ready. Aim. Shoot yourself in the foot.
Then, please hobble out of the way. Some of us are trying to
do business.

James Ready is president and CEO of MontaVista Software, Inc., and has more
than 25 years of technical and entrepreneurial
experience. Cofounder of Ready Systems, he pioneered the
development of the first commercially viable, real-time operating system
(RTOS) product—the VRTX real-time kernel.

Comment viewing options

SCO is already dead. Even if in the 1/10000000000 chance they should win against IBM. The very most it would do is slow down Linux while code is rewritten. Besides who would buy there Software anyway? I would run Windows Servers before using SCO Unix... yuk.. And from what I has seen so far. I over estamated the chances of them winning to begin with. Not one legal eagle, not being paid by SCO, is saying they have any chance.

Time to ignore SCO and leave them to there fate. IBM will finish them and if not IBM. Novell, RedHat, AutoZone and others are standing in line to slap them around in court.

It is a shame after all the work from all the people that worked on UNIX for decades. It's legacy is going to be that of SCO. Remembered by failed court battles instead of the grand father of whatever Linux will become. Unix was once a great OS and now The SCO Group has turned it into crap. I just hope our court system here in the USA can put an end to this before too long.